Legend of the Deeps
by Dragoness Eclectic
Summary: G1 The three triplechanger Decepticons are on a mission to an alien star system to retrieve a mysterious energy source. Too bad for them that Decepticons make a nice snack for that which lairs in the deeps of space.
1. By the Light of the Blue Star

_Beep!_

"Train, I'm getting _something_ on the passives," Octane said as he studied the console in front of him. "Bearing 57 starboard by 22 down, range unknown. Don't have signal strength yet," he added.

"Acknowledged," Astrotrain said in his strong, resonant voice. "Keep tracking it." At Astrotrain's command, the rebuilt Autobot shuttle they were flying swung about onto the new heading.

"The question is," Blitzwing said, "does it need shooting or collecting?"

Octane's wings twitched. "Hopefully it's our target, and something we can just scrape off a rock, box up, and go home with."

"Nah, that would be boring!" Blitzwing responded, taking out his gun and working on it. "I've been going stir-crazy sitting in the back of this bus for weeks. I desperately need to shoot someone--or gut 'em."

"Either one suits me," said Astrotrain. "As long as we get Megatron this energy source, whatever it is."

"Yeah, going home empty-handed wouldn't amuse Megatron much, and he's been a bit less tolerant of failure lately," Blitzwing responded.

"Assuming we don't just fly by it in this electronic soup," Octane said, waving his hand at the glowing nebula outside. "This gas cloud is so thick, and that blue sun is ionizing so much of it, it's like flying in a blizzard, as far as the sensors are concerned."

"Any more planets?" Astrotrain asked.

Octane shook his head. "So far, nothing beyond that coalescing gas giant, and that's too close in for us to survive. I'm getting what may be Oort Cloud rubble out here, but hard to tell--the radar is so glitchy. Too much radiation."

Blitzwing put his gun away, moved up front and sat down at an unused bridge station. One of the viewscreens showed the primary star of the system--a massive type-B sun, hot and blue and deadly with its enormous energy output across the spectrum. Even at this extreme range, out among the cold rubble of comets, the x-ray and gamma radiation from the star would quickly kill most unprotected organics and seriously derange many mechanoids.

The builders of the triple-changers had armored and shielded them to survive on a nuclear battlefield; that was one of the reasons Megatron had sent them on this mission. They could work outside the ship in this system and not die--as long as they didn't push their luck.

Down in close to the star, where a super-Jovian planet was still coalescing out of the interstellar dust that had spawned its sun, the sheer intensity of even the visible light emitted by the blue star would melt all three of them into vapor within seconds, if they were so foolish as to venture there. And that was ignoring the massive stellar storms, spawned by the tortured magnetic field of the rapidly spinning giant, that were sleeting streams of ionized particles in weapons-grade doses through the inner system.

"Impressive," Blitzwing commented. "Next time I get too cocky about my own awesomeness, 'Train, just show me a picture of that thing."

Octane laughed; Astrotrain just smirked.

"You know what's funny?" Octane said. "That _star_ is younger than we are. It's not more than a few thousand years old, and likely to burn out, super-nova and turn into a black hole long before any of _us_ dies, unless we get unlucky in battle."

"Live fast, die young, leave a spectacular cosmic anomaly for a corpse," Astrotrain said.

"That's just weird, having stars around that are younger than me," Blitzwing responded.

"Too much interference--automatic course tracking is glitching on and off," said Astrotrain. "I'm taking manual control."

"That's odd," said Octane.

"What?" asked Astrotrain as he concentrated on holding the course to the energy signature.

"I'm getting some kind of energy discharge aft of us, coupled with ghost images on the radar, about a thousand klicks back. Heavy on the gammas and neutrons, intermittent bursts--"

Blitzwing looked sharply over at Octane. "That sounds like--"

"It's a fusion pulse drive!" Octane exclaimed.

Astrotrain heaved on the shuttle's control yoke, pitching the ship up on end and opened the throttle.

"'Train! What are you--" Octane yelled.

"Getting whoever has a fusion drive back there off my aft!" Astrotrain growled. "I want to see who our shadow is."

The shuttle heaved up and over in a vast loop; the electronic fog of the nebula continued to defy Astrotrain's efforts as he hunted for their pursuers.

"'Train! Whatever is closing fast!" Octane said, voice taunt. "Multiple bursters--I'm getting a large radar ghost--"

Blitzwing strapped in and braced himself, double-checking the position, condition and security of his weapons. Astrotrain slapped the attitude thrusters, pointing the shuttle straight at the unknown pursuer.

"I still can't see anything--" Octane said, a touch of fear in his voice.

"Octane, get your head out of the damn console and look out the slagging window! You've still got optics!" Astrotrain snarled as he stared grimly out the windshield.

Blitzwing looked at the same view--multiple jets of white-hot fusion flame wove back and forth, dimly illuminating like bolts of interstellar lightning the huge, darkly metallic shape between them, and the massive cables--no, metallic tentacles!--tying the array of fusion jets together. "What in the Pit is that thing?"

"A legend," Astrotrain said. "Damn those fool Autobots for not arming this ship! BRACE YOURSELVES!"

The tangle of fusion jets suddenly spread wide, an all-encompassing net that reached up to swallow the shuttle whole. The shuttle shuddered as Astrotrain slammed the throttle to full emergency speed and tugged at the yoke, rolling the ship into a complicated sideways slew that sent it hurtling between two of the great tentacles.

One of the tentacles immediately responded, curling in a great loop as the tip-jet zipped it around the shuttle in a spiral. The shuttle abruptly decelerated as it tried to pull the mass of the tentacle along with it--then the tentacle tightened and the hull groaned under the pressure. More tentacles zipped over and wound around the ship, cutting its acceleration further until the shuttle was only gently dragging the monster through space. The shuttle groaned with each impact; hull plates tore and buckled; air whistled as it leaked into space.

"No good!" said Astrotrain, switching to radio communication. "Abandon the shuttle, and follow me! Our only chance is to cripple the tentacles before it cuts our ship and us up into spare parts."

Blitzwing and Octane both popped free of their seat harnesses; Blitzwing took one look at the buckling hull just behind the bridge and drew his energy scimitar. One, two, three, four furious blows, and he'd hacked a new portal through the bridge overhead.

"So what in the Pit is that _legendary_ thing, 'Train?" asked Blitzwing as he maneuvered through the impromptu hatch and out on the hull.

"A pyropod." Astrotrain followed Blitzwing out.

"The kraken of space? But that's just... a myth," Octane said, pulling himself free of the hole in the hull. "A spacer's tall tale."

"Your tall tale is eating our ship," Blitzwing pointed out as he shifted to MiG-shape (like Octane's, his jets had been refitted with an aerospike alternate mode for space work) and swooped along the nearest tentacle to the fusion jet at its tip. Avoiding the deadly rocket, which blasted as hot as Megatron's cannon, Blitzwing shifted to robot mode and swung his electronics-disrupting scimitar at the attachment point of the rocket.

The hard-driven sword slashed through titanium armor, fuel pipes, and control wires; the second swing severed power conduits and the rest of the armor, sending the tip-jet spinning off into space, dead.

The pyropod's tentacle convulsed; the shuttle's hull ruptured like a smashed melon. Other tentacle tips flew over and reversed themselves, the fusion jets turning into cutting torches, slicing into the crushed hull. Deep inside the wrecked shuttle, an automatic distress beacon flared on in programmed response to the massive damage.

"Oh, scrap!" Astrotrain aimed his disrupter rifle at another tip jet and fired; the jet suddenly stuttered and skittered off at an angle, dragging the tentacle with it. As quickly as he could, he targeted another tip-jet and shot it, with similar results.

Octane threw himself at one of the cutting tips and grabbed it just behind the jet. He shot it at close range with his flame thrower; not much happened as the flames splashed on and off the titanium shell. "Scrap! What do I do now?"

The jet surged in his grasp as it dragged itself and Octane toward another tip-jet, which turned its fusion flame to greet them. "Oh slag I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die!" Octane screamed as he desperately hugged the tip-jet he was holding and tried to swing it around between him and the oncoming fusion blast. As he did so, the changed vector forced the tip-jet and the tentacle it was attached to surge upward, carrying Octane above the line of the oncoming fusion jet--and causing it to cleanly sever the tentacle tip Octane was holding.

Blitzwing flew in MiG-shape to another tentacle and methodically hacked the tip off. Tentacles unwound from the ship as the tips maneuvered to attack the triple-changers, or as the pyropod tried to retract its wounded members from the battle.

Five tip-jets and tentacles dove toward Astrotrain. He smirked. "I was wondering when you'd do that, beastie!" He dove off the hull into space, changing into shuttle mode; the tentacles changed course, straining to envelop and crush him. As the first tentacles closed around him, he shifted modes again, to locomotive form. The massive steel train crashed through the thin titanium armor of the tentacles like a bull through a fisherman's net. The tentacles reversed, tips bared for fusion cutting--Astrotrain switched back to robot mode and neatly shot them all.

"Octane, quit screwing around," Blitzwing snarled as Octane flailed in space. In MiG-shape he chased the tentacle that pursued Octane--it was the last functional jet. Octane switched to jet tanker mode and flew away from it, but not fast enough--

Blitzwing switched to robot mode and shot the tentacle with his ionic rifle, disrupting its controls. The tentacle tip spasmed; Blitzwing unsheathed his scimitar and swung, meeting the tentacle head on as it flailed blindly. Tentacle and tip-jet parted company, the latter spinning away into deep space.

Astrotrain switched back to shuttle mode, dodging helplessly flailing tentacles as he returned to the crushed hull of the former Autobot shuttle. He pressed his nose against it and pushed it clear of the frantically thrashing pyropod on its ballistic course.

"And that was a small pyropod," Astrotrain said. "You should see full-grown ones."

Octane and Blitzwing caught up in their plane modes. Octane looked at the mess Astrotrain was pushing clear and said, "Scrap! We are so deep in the Smelting Pools, we can't even see the slag layer from here."

"No," Astrotrain said. "I'm still in control of the situation. Octane, scavenge all the fuel you can out of this wreck and load me up, then yourself, then Blitzwing. Blitzwing, get all our equipment out of there and load it into me, then park your aft inside. I don't want you wasting fuel." As the other two triple-changers moved to fulfill their assigned tasks, Astrotrain added, "Let's hope that energy source is just something we can scrape off a rock and take home."

"We're still going after that?" Octane said.

Blitzwing just laughed.

Astrotrain said, "Are you going to tell Megatron we lost the shuttle _and_ came back empty-handed?"

# # #

Astrotrain was correct; the pyropod they'd fought was a small one, a mere space squid. It thrashed and flailed, bleating tiny radionic cries of pain and distress. Countless thousands of kilometers away, its cries were heard.

The ancient pyropod's passive sensors heard the tiny squeals of stubbed-off controls trying vainly to re-establish connections with their jets. Its own jets flared as it homed in on the radio noise. Each jet on _this_ pyropod was easily twice the size of an Autobot shuttle's main engines, and hot enough to whiff a Transformer into vapor. This pyropod, the ancient one, was a true kraken of space.

The central maw opened, revealing the furnace within; a single stunning pulse of electro-magnetic energy stunned the flailing juvenile. The great pyropod's tentacles coiled around the lesser pyropod, auxiliary tendrils holding it in place while outer jets twisted to balance the thrust of the jets turned inward and used as cutting torches.

The great kraken focused the flame of several jets and sliced the stunned juvenile into chunks, chunks that were fed into the yawning maw of the central body--though auxiliary tendrils carefully plucked the juvenile's memory array from the central body and integrated it with the kraken's own memory array. The fusion furnace quickly vaporized the alloys and compounds that made up the body of the juvenile pyropod; the great kraken's internal magnetic fields sorted the vaporized, ionized elements into separate ionic streams that were rejoined with their electrons, precipitated out, and stored for future use.

When it was done feeding, the great kraken re-aligned its jets and magnetic fields; now, an immense magnetic ramscoop sucked up the hydrogen gas of the nebula and fueled the ancient pyropod as it homed in on the next feast.

Two signals attracted its attention: the nearer, an automated distress signal, and the further, the energy signature of an active rocket engine.


	2. The Derelict

_Beep-beep-beep!_

"I'm picking up the energy source," Astrotrain said through his bridge console. "It's less than 50 klicks away. Keep your optics active."

"Like I can see anything in this crud?" Octane grumbled.

"Oh, quit your whining!" Blitzwing said as he filed the serrated cutting edges on his sword. It had taken more of a beating chopping up pyropod tentacles than it was really made for.

"Easy for you to say, you're can actually fight them!" said Octane. "'Train can at least shoot them, you can hack them up and shoot them, but they're immune to my weapon! What am I going to do, wave at them?"

"Oh, for the love of Primus!" Blitzwing sheathed his sword and made his way to one of the cargo containers lashed down in Astrotrain's hold. After unlatching the top, he fumbled around inside. "Here, catch!"

Octane just barely caught the pistol that tumbled end over end in his direction. He looked it over. "Standard photon pistol, Autobot make. I suppose it will do. Something you found in the shuttle?"

"Yep," answered Blitzwing.

"Just don't take any practice shots in here," rumbled Astrotrain from the speakers.

_Beep!_

"What's that?" Octane pointed out Astrotrain's forward viewport at a dark shape dimly silhouetted against the glow of the nebula.

"Our target," answered Astrotrain.

Blitzwing elbowed Octane out of the way. "It's a ship of some kind."

_Beep!_

Details resolved themselves as Astrotrain closed in on the target. A congeries of highly reflective globes clinging together like so many giant soap bubbles drifted in space. Here and there, black splotches marred the mirrored surface.

"It has not responded to my approach--it may be a derelict," Astrotrain commented. A light glowed on one of his instrument panels, indicating that he'd energized and armed his ionic blasters.

_Beep!_

"The energy source is somewhere aboard," Octane said, looking at Astrotrain's displays.

"So we'll go aboard," Blitzwing replied.

"Those black areas appear to be holes in the hull," Astrotrain announced. "It is indeed a derelict. I'll moor to the hole nearest the energy source and you two go investigate. Octane, top me off before you go."

Octane hesitated at that. "Why am I translating that into 'Give me as much fuel as you can so I don't lose it if you get snuffed in there'? Is there something you're not telling us, 'Train?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying, and it's an alien derelict of unknown technology--if you think it's going to be safe, I want to know who pulled your main processor!" snarled Astrotrain.

Blitzwing cocked his head slightly. "He's right, there's something you're not telling us. Spill it, 'Train!"

The space shuttle sighed. "Two things, and both are... vague. One, that ship still has a hull--pyropods eat metal hulls for materials, so that's odd; two..." Astrotrain trailed off.

"What's number two, 'Train?" Blitzwing pressed him.

"Pyropods don't come solo."

There was a long silence. "Come inside with us," Blitzwing said. "It's a long walk home if a pyropod eats you while we're poking around in the bilge of this thing."

Another long silence followed. "Very well. I'll accompany you. Everyone out!"

# # #

The inside of the ship proved to be as barren as the outside, if a bit more complex and confusing. Though none of them could detect the energy fields of a gravity generator, nonetheless there was weak gravity pulling them against the interior walls of the mirrored spheres, particularly in the direction that appeared to be a floor of sorts. (It was leveled off, rather being hemispherical). Said interior walls were just as reflective as the outside.

Where sphere joined sphere, there was simply a round opening without any noticeable joint or weld between the two. There were shelves and niches in the walls, a leveled floor--though at different levels between different spheres, and the occasional unidentifiable structure protruding from the walls or the floor.

Astrotrain cursed in his deep, very resonant voice a few minutes after entering the first sphere. "Smelt and dross! My sensors don't work in here!"

"Glitching from the radiation?" Octane asked. Blitzwing looked around warily.

"No--they're still online, they just lost the energy source, like it'd been shutdown or something. Funny, I was getting it fine from outside," Astrotrain said.

"Maybe you can't pick it up in here?" Octane said. "I always seem to have that problem with my radio."

"Let me step outside and check," Astrotrain said as he flew out the hole again. He came back a few minutes later. "Yes... the hull walls cut off my sensors. Did you hear me tell you that while I was out there?"

"Tell us what?" Blitzwing said.

"Apparently, nothing. Hull walls cut off radio, too." Astrotrain aimed his ionic blaster at the wall and fired.

Light splashed off the mirrored surfaced and bounced around the room; Blitzwing leaned out of the way and Octane dove through one of the adjacent archways.

"...and are immune to particle weapons," Astrotrain concluded. He strode back to the gaping hole in the hull and peered intently at it. "Octane, come take a look a this--Octane?" He looked around; Octane wasn't in the sphere with them.

"He went thataway," Blitzwing said, jerking a thumb toward the archway.

"--come look at this," Octane's voice suddenly cut in as he stepped in front of the archway. "I think I've found it!"

"It what?" Blitzwing said in a surly tone.

"The energy source!" Octane beckoned them on, and disappeared into the next sphere again.

Astrotrain and Blitzwing looked at each other then strode forward as one. At the archway, Blitzwing had to duck back or get his head shoved through sideways by Astrotrain's right wing. "Scrap! Some midgets declare you a god once, and you gotta lead the parade ever since..." Blitzwing muttered.

The two of them stopped just inside the entrance and stared. Large, gently glowing white capsules lined the walls of the chamber. In the center of the spherical chamber, a vaguely cylindrical device projected from the floor. A fluted cylinder of the same shining metal topped by an elliptical, dead black ovoid, enclosed in spirals of refractory crystal radiated the strange energy signature that had drawn them all the way from Cybertron. Other, more mundane energy fields twisted around the glowing capsules lining the chamber.

Blitzwing eyed the black ovoid suspiciously. "How come we could detect that from outside, when the walls block all our sensors?"

Astrotrain strode over to examine it. "I think it's radiating through the hull somehow. It must be this derelict's power source--perhaps this is the drive room."

"So these are part of the drive?" Octane asked as he poked at one of the glowing capsules. "I can feel a pretty good magnetic field around this--yiiiii!"

Octane's hand was grabbed by the magnetic field and slammed hard against the capsule, cracking it--there was a flash of electricity and Octane staggered back, only to lurch into four more glowing capsules and smash them. When the explosion of sparks subsided, Octane was flat on his back, twitching convulsively. Black scorch marks marred his white hands.

Blitzwing drew his weapon and looked around wildly; Astrotrain simply turned his head from side to side, scanning the immediate neighborhood before stepping over to Octane.

"Are you still functional?" Astrotrain asked.

"G-gggg-ahhh! Y-yes," Octane replied; the twitching subsided. "Just a bit of a power surge. Those things got a hell of a charge in them!"

Astrotrain stepped over Octane and studied the broken capsules closely. The broken shells were a dull, lightless white; inside coiled layer upon layer of circuitry, twisted like some organically-grown thing. Astrotrain lifted off the floor on his boot-thrusters and very gingerly touched one of the broken shells. Nothing happened; he picked up a broken shard and examined it.

"Metallo-ceramic." He settled back to the floor and studied the intact ones. "With that strong a magnetic field... it would pack quite a wallop if some fool managed to short it through himself."

Octane raised himself on his elbows and scowled. "Let me guess--superconducting storage loop?"

"Looks like," answered Astrotrain. "Keeps the circuitry inside warm and happy."

"Circuitry of what?" Blitzwing growled. Octane finally got to his feet, staggering a bit.

Astrotrain shrugged, great wings sliding up and back down. "That is another mystery. Octane, sit down until you get your gyros back online. We do not need a repeat performance!" He turned toward Blitzwing. "Cover my back, I'm going to check this sphere from outside."

Octane plopped back down on the floor as Astrotrain and Blitzwing strode back out of the mysterious device-filled chamber. "Ow. How come _I_ never find the mysterious alien devices that grant godlike powers--just the ones that fry my circuits?" he muttered to himself as he waited for his damage control routines to bring everything back online.

Blitzwing stuck his head back inside and said, "Look at it this way, Octane--you could find the ones that grant you godlike powers, then have them drive you insane with said powers, and melt your processors from the massive overload."

"Have you been taking optimism lessons from Dead End?"

"I was this cynical a million years before he was ever dreamed of. Remember one of the fundamental laws of the universe: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Godlike powers included."

# # #

Outside, Astrotrain shifted to shuttle mode and flew to the adjacent sphere; Blitzwing tagged along in MiG form.

"Yes, the energy source transmits through the hull. Perhaps it is the drive of the derelict, or a transmitter of some kind," said Astrotrain after analyzing his sensors.

"So we how do we take it home to Megatron? Do we need that whole pod, or can we just pry loose the black egg thing?" Blitzwing asked.

"That... may be difficult." Astrotrain sounded unusually hesitant. "I wanted Octane to take a look at the hull cross-sections, just for an independent evaluation..."

"But?" Blitzwing sounded impatient.

"But what?" Astrotrain sounded slightly aggrieved.

"I'm hearing a 'but' in your voice, 'Train. What is it?" Blitzwing said

"I believe the hull is plated and/or laced with degenerate matter--thus the density, persistent gravity fields, reflectivity, and imperviousness to energy attacks. It will be equally resistant to physical attacks. I could be wrong, though. It could be made of hadron-based atoms, instead."

"Degenerate matter? That's the stuff from neutron stars, right? You can't even get at the stuff, let alone make something with it!" Blitzwing said.

Astrotrain radioed back, "_We_ cannot. Someone else evidently can, and yet another party could damage the stuff. They used some kind of weapon that prematurely aged the metal, causing it to become brittle from proton decay and fall apart."

"Uh-huh. I'll take your word for it."

"If this is degenerate matter--" Astrotrain shifted to robot mode and fingered the hull, "It's too massive to take even a single pod. We'll have to remove the--" Astrotrain suddenly swung to his left and shifted to shuttle mode. "Blitzwing! I'm picking up fusion drives! Another pyropod!"

Blitzwing shifted to MiG mode and turned up his passive sensors to maximum gain. The crackle and hum of the energized nebula, and the roar of the blue star drowned out anything his short-ranged sensors could have detected.

"Where, 'Train?"

"There." Astrotrain yawed a few degrees to port.

"Oh, scrap."

Over a hundred fusion jets spread in a ring, tied together by darkness. Each jet was over twice as powerful as one of the now-destroyed shuttle's rockets. In the heart of that darkness hid an immense bulk, within which another fusion fire burned. The ring of fusion fire yawned wider and wider as the thing jetted straight towards them.

"This is a _big_ one," said Astrotrain.

"Thanks for telling me that, 'Train."

"Back to the derelict! Its hull should be impervious to this thing--it'll have to fish us out with its tentacles," said Astrotrain.

Both of them swung about and rocketed for the nearest hole in the bubble-mass of the derelict.

"Blitzwing! I'm sensing some kind of magnetic field build--URKK!"

The massive electro-magnetic pulse surged through the two Decepticons, overloading every circuit in their bodies. Only their heavily-shielded inner cores--containing memory banks, main processors, critical damage control systems, and their lasercores survived undamaged. Every circuit breaker tripped, hurling them both into stasis lock. Two silent, motionless forms hurtled in ballistic silence toward the dead derelict.

# # #

BONNNNGGGGG!

Octane had just regained his feet when the hull of the derelict shuddered, ringing like an enormous gong.

"What the slag?" Octane took a tight grip on his photon pistol and looked around. "That didn't sound good."

Twisting slightly to keep his broad wings from banging on the inter-pod archways, Octane worked his way back to the entrance hole. He peered out the gash in the hull, seeing only the haze of the nebula and the glare of stars embedded in it.

"Um, guys?" he radioed. Then his traffic radar picked up two hurtling forms just before they slammed into the side of the hull bubble and rebounded.

"Blitzwing! Astrotrain!" Octane switched to jet tanker mode and flew out, hooking each of the motionless bodies with a cable. Looking back over his wing, he saw It.

An immense ring of fusion jets surrounding a huge central body seemed to reach for the derelict, engulfing it in its tentacles. The giant pyropod was about the size of the alien derelict, but seemed much larger with its jets spread wide.

Even as he watched, and started towing the deactivated forms of Astrotrain and Blitzwing toward the nearest gap in the hull, the dark central mass of the pyropod seemed to open out; the blue-white glare of fusion fire shone between the great flaps as they opened like flower petals. Octane had a very bad feeling that he didn't want to wait around until the thing had fully opened.

Octane firewalled his throttle, burning energon like it was his own funeral pyre. He rolled and transformed as he plunged through the gaping slash in the nearest pod, leaving his wingtip lights on the edges of the hull, flipping around to decelerate--

The pyropod's magnetic pulse hit just as he dove into the gap, frying the circuitry in his boot jets, though the rest of his body was shielded by the alien hull. The aerospike rockets sputtered and died just as Octane rotated around to decelerate.

"Oh, slaaaaag!" Octane slammed into the opposite bulkhead at full speed--then the inactive bodies of Astrotrain and Blitzwing smashed into him--

# # #

At the fringes of the Orion Nebula, an old shuttle piloted by an even older Autobot lifted from the asteroid mining community on Foraker III.

Kup looked back at the supply depot briefly. "That place was even duller than a-- come to think of it, even I can't think of anything dull enough to compare it to!" He looked at the navigation display. "Well, Kup, where to now? No place civilized or even decently barbaric within a dozen light years of the nebula..."

_Beep! Beep!_

"What's this?" Kup checked his console--his communications computer informed him that it had detected two automatic emergency beacons. "What and where--oh-ho! This is interesting--one Autobot beacon, and one Decepticon beacon. In a proto-star system--no, wait, updated information--a newly-formed B star system."

Kup pondered the astronomical data and the beacons. "That system is too hostile for anything to survive there--must be a trick of some kind. Or the distress beacons are the only thing left of the poor bastards that wound up in that system. Still, it wouldn't hurt to head over that way and see what's what, as long as I stay well outside the system."

Even as he got a fix on the beacons and set up his course in the navigation computer, the Autobot distress beacon ceased broadcasting. Only the one lone Decepticon signal continued broadcasting--then it, too, suddenly cut off.


	3. Scrapped

Octane came back online in a great deal of pain, with far too many alarms in his memory queue. He was laying on his right side, with one wing crumpled under him, and his legs crushed underneath Astrotrain. His other wing had been crushed by Blitzwing, and his chassis was badly bent and cracked between his own impact with the wall and Blitzwing smashing into his body. His right arm was pinned under his body, and probably badly bent from the feel of it. His left arm had a Blitzwing on it.

His thrusters were offline, and he couldn't transform with his current injuries--too many things broken, crushed or bent out of place. His optics, audio, radio, cerebro-circuitry and his vital processors were intact. His main fuel reserve was still safely tucked away in subspace, but his fueling interfaces and fuel processor were as damaged as the rest of him. His automatic emergency beacon was squalling on the appropriate frequencies, telling all and sundry that here was a Decepticon ready for the spare parts bin.

"This is... not good. I probably should panic now," Octane muttered to himself. "Except that panicking involves flailing about and running, and I can't do either right now. Why did I come on this mission again? Right, because Megatron ordered me to."

He wiggled his left hand. "Fingers work! That's a start." His upper arm was still pinned by Blitzwing's deactivated body, in spite of the very low gravity--just enough to give him a sense of up and down. Octane tried to roll and shift Blitzwing's dead weight off of him-- and stopped suddenly as bent metal gouged something inside his hips. His legs would not move; he could only twist himself so far. With a painful jerk Octane succeeded in rolling onto his back--but not in freeing himself from Blitzwing. Blitzwing's bent and twisted parts were interlocked with Octane's own torn metal. His legs were still crushed under Astrotrain.

"This is still not good," Octane said to himself. His right arm was smashed and bent, but now free to move--if it could. Octane tried to flex it--and screamed. A little more cautiously, he wiggled his right hand fingers--they worked. His elbow joint was smashed, and his right shoulder didn't work too well, either. "Okay, I can use my right hand to hold things if I move them to it. That's progress. I think."

Something hit the hull with a 'thunk' that Octane could feel through the metal under his back. He froze; something went "scritcha-scritcha-scritch" across metal. "Blitzwing? Astrotrain?" he radioed cautiously.

No answer. He turned his head to look around, cranking up light intensification so that the nebula glow illuminated the chamber.

An articulated metallic tentacle tipped with a four-fingered gripper slithered across the floor, tapping and prodding every few feet. The base of the tentacle snaked out of the gap in the hull and out of sight--no, Octane could see outside the much larger tentacle it emerged from, as a branch does from a tree trunk. _That_ tentacle had the dark, hard scaly armored surface he remembered from the other pyropod--only it was nearly ten times the diameter of those tentacles--and too large to enter the gap in the hull.

"This is very not good!" Octane writhed, trying to twist loose from his entanglement with Blitzwing.

The pyropod tendril whipped around to point in his direction--Octane froze. The tendril surged forward, stopping to prod the floor once or twice--

It grabbed Blitzwing by the ankle, gripping it and pulling the deactivated triple-changer toward the gap in the hull. Metal twisted and scraped past as the tendril pulled Blitzwing almost loose from Octane. Only the weight of Astrotrain and the other triple-changer's wings crushed into Octane's legs kept him from being dragged along with Blitzwing. As it was, the slowly uncoiling towing cable still attached to Blitzwing would soon drag the tanker along to whatever doom Blitzwing was headed for.

As Blitzwing's body started to slide past, Octane shook his left arm free and grabbed Blitzwing's electro-scimitar from its sheath. He rolled violently, trying to push Astrotrain off his legs--Astrotrain rocked and nearly slid off, but his crushed wing, and the other towing cable, welded him firmly to Octane's legs.

Octane swung desperately, cutting through Astrotrain's wing and the towing cable. Again he rolled and pulled--At last, his legs came free! From the feel of it, he had two crushed stumps for legs, but at least he could move.

The pyropod's tendril had nearly dragged Blitzwing to the gap. Octane dragged himself along the floor--more above the floor than actually on the floor in this very low gravity--and hacked desperately at the tendril. Fortunately for Blitzwing, the tendril parted before Blitzwing's ankle did.

The damaged tendril whipped away out of sight; three more tendrils darted in, toward Octane and Blitzwing. Octane thumbed on Blitzwing's sword, and swung the energized electro-scimitar. Three tendril tips dropped slowly to the floor as the severed tendrils spasmed wildly from the electronic disruption effect of the scimitar.

The tendrils withdrew; the monstrous tentacle outside began to move. Octane had a bad feeling about that. With his functional left arm, he guided his damaged right arm to Blitzwing's body and firmly gripped the back of the other triple-changer's neck with his right hand.

Ah! His subspace controls were still working. Octane stuck Blitzwing's scimitar in a loop of towing cable and summoned his flamethrower into his left hand; he gave it a quick squeeze, using it as an impromptu rocket to push him back to Astrotrain. Now how in the Pit was he going to pick up Astrotrain and use the flamethrower?

Octane glanced worriedly at the giant tentacle still moving its seemingly near-infinite length past the gap in the hull. Off to his right was the archway into the next chamber. Dithering--bad. He had to do something--

Octane rolled and deliberately hooked his crumpled wing into the shreds of Astrotrain's hacked-up wing, pulling the shuttle-changer on to his back. Then Octane faced the archway, pointed the flamethrower behind him, and gave the trigger a long squeeze, jetting him into the next chamber.

The bad feeling shivered up and down his conduits; Octane stopped in the adjacent chamber just long enough to orient himself and find the next archway. He jetted himself and his deactivated companions into the third chamber--just as he did so, a brilliant white light flashed in the archway he'd just passed through. Octane fled through the next archway as clouds of hot plasma seethed through the chamber he'd just vacated. Fortunately for the Decepticons, the space-chilled walls of the chambers rapidly absorbed the heat of the plasma clouds and cooled them back down to mere hot ionized gas by the time it reached Octane.

Yet another alarm joined the myriad in Octane's diagnostics queue--'Low Fuel'. His impromptu flamethrower-rocket had just drained what was left of his auxiliary fuel reserve--most of which had leaked out of his crumpled wings.

"This is so very not good."

# # #

In assimilating the juvenile pyropod's memory banks, the giant pyropod had acquired a useful memory--these small metallic creatures counter-attacked by severing tentacle-rockets. When Octane severed its manipulatory tendrils, the great kraken of space adjusted its tactics. The prey belonged to the type that had crippled the juvenile--it was dangerous. The ancient pyropod had not grown ancient by disregarding danger; better to kill the creatures first and worry about their edibility later.

It withdrew all manipulatory tentacles and pulled its tip-rocket around to the gap in the hull. The great pyropod directed the exhaust from the tip-rocket, refocused into a cutting torch, through the gap in the alien hull, playing it around the chamber like a blowtorch.

Fortunately for Octane and the other two triple-changers, he'd gotten them just far enough away, around just enough corners, just in time.

# # #

The next chamber Octane dragged himself and the other two into proved to be the chamber of the mysterious energy source, aka "the drive room". With a bit of maneuvering, he laid Astrotrain and Blitzwing down carefully, in a area free from the fragile, electrically charged white ovoids, and started to check them over.

"Come on, guys, don't be dead! I can't get home without you, and I really don't want to be stuck out here for the rest of my life--which will be real short if I can't get some repairs soon. I really don't want to die, okay?" Octane opened up Astrotrain's ventral access panel. It didn't take him long to figure out that the big shuttle's diagnostic interface was fried.

He panicked. Octane didn't remember exactly what all he did next, but next thing he knew, he found himself staring at the scintillating glow of Astrotrain's lasercore, feeling utter relief at the sight. "You're not dead. You're not dead! Thank you, thank you, thank you Astrotrain!"

Octane very carefully closed up Astrotrain's inner core again. So that was still functional, but a lot of his other circuitry was rather fried. Where in the Pit was he going to find something to replace it with? Not to mention that Blitzwing was probably in the same shape.

His wandering gaze fell on the broken ovoids that had shocked him earlier, and the sinuous coils of circuitry that each had contained. The alien devices couldn't possibly be of use, could they? Could they?

They could. They were electrically-based. Octane unwound the coils, stripping away the tailored microcircuitry for the basic stuff--PALs, caps, wiring, gates, diodes. He could restore basic--very basic!--functionality to Astrotrain. The trouble was, Octane needed to know what was going on in the shuttle-con's internals. Astrotrain's critical systems module held all that information, but without a functional external diagnostics interface, only Astrotrain could read it. Therein lay a conundrum. The only unfried external diagnostics interface module around was Octane's.

He looked long and hard at the buckled access panel in his side. "This is going to hurt... Slag it! I'd rather be hurting than dead."

# # #

Several hours later, Octane leaned back, creaky and stiff, but feeling no pain. He'd turned off his own pain sensors early on, except for the ones in his fingers--he wanted full-spectrum sensitivity there. He suspected that if he turned them back on, he'd feel a lot of things he didn't want to feel. He made the last connection and waited.

Light flickered in Astrotrain's optics. At first, there was only silence as the big shuttle-con looked up at Octane. Finally, he found his radio voice.

"You look like slag--no, dross. Slag looks better than you right now. What in the Pit happened? And what is wrong with my radio?" Astrotrain asked.

"You and Blitzer got EMP-blasted by the big pyropod. I had to rebuild your radio from scratch with this alien scrap," Octane waved a handful of coiled circuitry at Astrotrain, "so you're stuck with simple AM/FM--no spread-spectrum, no encryption. And be careful--you're jury-rigged worse than a Junkion spaceship right now."

"Are you done working on me?" Astrotrain lay still.

Octane glanced at the diagnostics display inside Astrotrain's chassis. "Yeah, until I get some real spare parts--and then someone who's a better repair mech than me can take over," Octane said as he started unbolting the external diagnostics interface module from Astrotrain.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" Astrotrain grabbed at Octane's arm.

"That's _my_ interface module I've got plugged into you. Need it for Blitzwing's repairs," Octane said wearily.

Astrotrain relaxed his grip. "What shape is Blitzwing in? And what happened to you?"

"I'm hoping that Blitzwing is alive in stasis lock, like you were," Octane said, more than a little concern showing on his face. "You both got your circuits fried by the giant pyropod--I tried to tow you guys to the ship, but it knocked out my thrusters, and I hit at full speed--with you guys coming in ballistic behind me." He pulled out the diagnostics module and finished closing Astrotrain's panels up.

Astrotrain slowly sat up and looked around. "Get started on Blitzwing. Someone needs to work on you," he said.

"I figured that out, 'Train." Octane pulled himself over to Blitzwing. Astrotrain watched his painful crawl, frowning.

"Slag it, does _anything_ on you work right now?"

"My left arm is good, and my head's still attached," Octane said.

"How's your fuel supply?" Astrotrain asked, calculating.

"Inaccessible, until I can transform again. Most of my auxiliary store is gone--wings leaked."

Astrotrain stood up and walked around Octane looking him over. "I should be able to bend everything back into place on you so you can transform. How bad are your jets?"

"EMP-fried, nacelles and turbines smashed. Aerospike assembly I can't even check out, but I doubt it's functional." Octane sighed.

"You don't need to be able to fly to transform. As long as _I_ can fly, with your fuel we can get home." Astrotrain hesitated. "Or away from here," he added.

Octane looked relieved, but there was a certain wariness about him. "Yeah. _We_ can get out of here."

Astrotrain laughed grimly. "Yes, once I get you transformed and drain your fuel, I could just leave you here. And Blitzwing. Less mass to transport home, more delta-V for me. Just take this toy," he waved at the black egg, "back to Megatron and report your tragic loss." He faced Octane. "That's what you're _afraid_ of!" He laughed cruelly.

"Not like it hasn't happened before, with other Cons," Octane said.

"You had no choice but to repair me, since you're too damaged to escape on your own," Astrotrain said, looking down at the fallen tanker. "Even if you're sure that I'll abandon you--or cannibalize you for parts for Blitzwing. Maybe I won't, you're thinking. Maybe you can trust me to make a best effort to get us _all_ home. Maybe you have a chance to live through this, you hope." His voice was a sadistic, predatory purr over the radio.

"Well, it's either hope, or pop a photon blast through my lasercore," Octane said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous snarl. "See, if I die now, nobody gets my fuel, and you two starve. If the pyropod doesn't eat you or vape you. It's tried both already. If I'm going to die because of _you_, I'll take you with me!"

Astrotrain put his hands on his hips, tossed his head back and laughed, the great sky god of Titan proclaiming that all was right in his universe. "You've found your courage, Octane! That's one good thing out of this colossal cluster-muck!"

Octane started opening up Blitzwing's access panels. "See, I figure if you were planning to drain me and run, you wouldn't have put me on guard like this--you'd have been nice and reassuring, making sure I trust you. So you plan to get us all out of here in one piece," Octane concluded.

"Haven't I just made you trust me by deliberately putting you on your guard?" Astrotrain said, an evil smile on his face.

"When did I say I was going to give you _all_ my fuel? Once I can transform again, I'll fuel you in stages, as needed," Octane said as he pulled out Blitzwing's fried diagnostic interface module and inserted his own. "Hook up to one of those white egg-things, drain the charge and hand it here. I need to strip out the wiring and stuff."

Astrotrain laughed again as he attached power leads to one of the glowing white ovoids. "You're not a fool, for all your easy-going ways." He shook his head. "Why so many people think that, I don't know."

"Because I'm the guy who'd rather cut a deal than blow holes through people?" Octane chuckled as he wired the diagnostics module into Blitzwing's systems. "I think only Swindle understands my point-of-view--you can only kill people once, but you can scam them over and over again. Besides, live people are much more interesting than dead wrecks."

Astrotrain handed him a broken white shell along with its contents. "What's Blitzwing's status?"

Octane studied the diagnostic outputs. "'Bout the same as yours was. He's alive and half-fried."

"Good." The relief in Astrotrain's voice was obvious. "As soon as you get Blitzwing back online, I'm going to start repairing you. For now, let's see about Megatron's toy here."

"One thing you should know--it's not the same technology as these circuit-eggs I've been cannibalizing," Octane said.

"That's... interesting," Astrotrain said as he studied the cylinder supporting the black egg with its spiral crystal shroud. He circled around it, studying it from several angles while Octane continued to work on Blitzwing. "This may be removable." He lifted a hand toward the spiral crystal wrapping.

"Uh, before you start playing with it, remember that if you fry yourself, we all die."

"Good point. Blitzwing can handle it, when you get him back on his feet," Astrotrain said.

"Sure. I'll let _you_ tell him he's the expendable one," Octane said.

"Just get him functional!" Astrotrain growled.

Several hours later, Blitzwing's optics lighted up again. "Slag it, what'd that damn squid do?"

Octane sighed; at least Blitzwing's diagnostics were stable. He stared unplugging the module. "It EMP-fried both of you. I got smashed when my jets failed while towing you guys into the ship. I rebuilt your radio from scrap, that's why it doesn't work right. You're mostly jury-rigged with alien salvage right now. And, this is _my_ diagnostics module, which is why I'm pulling it. Yours got fried. Any more questions?"

"Yeah. Where in the Pit is that monster?" asked Blitzwing.

"I don't know--yet," answered Astrotrain. "First we get functional and secure Megatron's toy. Octane, get over here! Time to start bending you into shape. Blitzwing, when you get on your feet, try rotating the crystal shroud over there," he pointed at the black egg, "counterclockwise and lifting."

Blitzwing somewhat unsteadily got to his feet. "Frag it! My gyros are glitched." He leaned his head slightly to one side; Astrotrain was twisting and bending Octane's right arm back into shape. "Octane, you look like scrap."

"Yeah, I--unnh! That joint goes the OTHER SLAGGING WAY, 'TRAIN!--know."

"He is scrap, mostly," rumbled Astrotrain. "However, he was the only one left conscious, and he had the sense to jury-rig us back online." Astrotrain pulled the panels off Octane's arm and hammered them flat against the floor.

"Good job, Octane. We'd have been really foobarred if all three of us had gone into stasis lock." Blitzwing warily approached the central pedestal holding up the black egg and its crystal shroud. "Counterclockwise and lift, eh?"

"Yes," answered Astrotrain. "Octane, test your right arm articulation now."

Octane flexed his right arm gingerly. "Elbow is working, shoulder is still catching on something."

Blitzwing set himself and grabbed the crystal spirals. Nothing happened. He didn't explode, no sparks flew, no odd lights blazed. He twisted; it moved, the apparently seamless metal at the cylinder top turning under the egg. Blitzwing felt an almost imperceptible 'chunk' as of a bolt sliding home. He stopped and lifted. The black egg and crystal spiral assembly came free, along with the top inch of the pedestal.

"Got it, 'Train!" There was undeniable satisfaction in Blitzwing's voice.

"Excellent!" Astrotrain also sounded pleased. "Now stow that and help me get Octane straightened out."

About ten minutes later, Blitzwing noticed something moving at the edge of his optics. "What the slag is that?"

A metallic tentacle with a bulbous tip snaked through the far archway. It was larger than the tendrils that had snared Blitzwing, and moved more deliberately, like the owner knew exactly what and where it was reaching for.

Blitzwing reached for his electro-scimitar and stopped short, noting that it was no longer at his side. He looked at Octane and saw it. "Gimme that, you glitch!"

"So that's the thanks I get for using it to chop those tentacles off your deactivated chassis?" Octane handed the scimitar to Blitzwing. "Next time I'll let it drag you off and eat you."

"Unh." Blitzwing dodged back as the tentacle tip zigged across the room. He raised his scimitar to strike--

"Hold!" Astrotrain held up one hand. "Wait--I want to see what it's after."

The tentacle tip darted to the wall where one of the white ovoids had been, before Octane cannibalized it for spare parts. It prodded at the location, and then moved to the next gap and the next, until it found an intact, glowing ovoid. The bulb opened into a bell and enveloped the ovoid, closing around it and pulling it from the wall. Then the tentacle snaked back the way it came.

"Huh?" Blitzwing was the first one to speak.

"Ewww," said Octane. "There was something just... gross about that."

"Hmmmmmm. Interesting," said Astrotrain.


	4. How do we get out of here?

Some hours later, Octane had enough of the kinks beaten out of him that he could at least walk. He still wasn't sure if he could transform, and the derelict's chambers were a bit small for testing. The bulbous tentacle came back three times while Astrotrain and Blitzwing worked him over. Each time they carefully stayed out of its way while it grabbed another ovoid. Octane had taken to calling them eggs.

"What's the plan, 'Train?" Blitzwing asked.

"You two gather up the remaining eggs and lash them together. We're bringing them with. Then we do some recon," Astrotrain ordered, stepping over broken shells to the other archway.

There was a giant black armored tentacle blocking the first gap in the hull they came to. The three of them hurriedly backtracked and tried an alternate archway, finding a bubble with a gap in the overhead about two chambers down. It was big enough for all three of them to look out.

"Primus!" Blitzwing stared at the hundred gigantic tentacles coiled around and through the mass of derelict. The great pyropod had wound itself around the ship like a lover, massive tentacles writhing and coiling about struts and bubbles. "What the slag is it doing here?"

"Tending its eggs," Astrotrain said. "This derelict is some kind of hatching ground."

"And you brought the eggs with," said Blitzwing. "That's just great."

An hissing sound crackled in their audials. "Something's broadcasting!" Octane said.

"The eggs!" Blitzwing exclaimed.

"Blitzwing! Put them inside the hull, where they are shielded!" snapped Astrotrain.

"'Train, how are we getting out of here with that thing babysitting us?" asked Octane

Astrotrain did not answer.

"'Train, I'd like to know that, too," said Blitzwing.

"The only way we're going to get out of here is if we use our processors for something besides catching cosmic rays," said Astrotrain.

"We're all dead mechs," said Octane.

"Can you outrun it, 'Train?" asked Blitzwing.

"Maybe. I'd need a full tank of fuel, though," he said, looking at Octane. "And a head start."

"Sure, I'll just jump in front of Big Mamma there and transform. She won't pay a bit of attention, right?" Octane said sarcastically.

"Not if she's distracted," said Blitzwing softly. "I'll get her attention, you launch and refuel 'Train, then the two of you pull max Gs out of here."

"But what about you--Oh no, you're not!" said Octane. "You are _not_ staying behind!"

"I'm the expendable one, Octane," answered Blitzwing. "You don't need me to get home. Better one of us stays behind than we all die." He drifted just outside and slowly, painfully transformed into his MiG form. "Damn, you weren't kidding about this being a jury-rig! As soon as you're ready, 'Train, let me know."

"Blitzwing! No! There's got to be some other way," Octane said.

"Octane, you're a Decepticon!" Blitzwing growled. "Don't get all Autobot-sentimental on me!" He turned his nose to face the immense central body of the giant pyropod. "Just... remember me. That'll be enough."

"No." Astrotrain held up one hand. "That won't work. As soon as you get its attention, it will EMP-blast us all. However--"

"Well, scrap! I didn't think of that!" Blitzwing said grumpily.

"--however, you've just shown that we can transform without attracting its attention. Blitzwing, transform and get back down here--I need you to get the eggs. Octane, cable to me after I transform, come out, and transform," ordered Astrotrain. He stepped out into space and began to transform.

Blitzwing obeyed, again transforming slowly and ducked back into the alien hull. "Be careful when you transform," he warned. "It's not properly controlled, you've got to pay attention to what you're doing. Slagging jury-rig."

"I--see," Astrotrain gasped queerly as he transformed even more slowly than Blitzwing. At last he returned to shuttle form. "I'm not sure I could do that again--and I can't access train mode right now. Octane! Your cable?"

Octane fastened one of his towing cables to the shuttle. "Here goes something, I hope!" He began to transform as slowly as the others, then stopped halfway to plane mode.

"We don't have all day, Octane!" Astrotrain snapped.

"I'm stuck. Something is still out of alignment," Octane said, his voice shaky.

"Oh, for the love of--let me see!" said Blitzwing. He flew out of the alien hull in robot mode, leaving the eggs behind.

"Check my tail assembly," Octane said.

"Yeah, I see it. Your elevators are still a bit askew." Blitzwing drew back his fist and hammered on the offending part; Octane screeched and it popped into place. Octane completed his transformation into a jet tanker.

"Octane, check your fuel pumps and start transferring fuel. Blitzwing, you had the right idea--we need to distract that thing--but the wrong implementation. We're going to distract it with the one thing it's not going to throw EMP at--and then we're going to run like all the demons of Cybertron are after us. Got the plan?"

"Yeah, except for 'the one thing'," answered Blitzwing.

"It's the eggs, isn't it?" said Octane. "Fuel pumps check out; mating with your starboard port now." The jet tanker extended a long refueling probe that docked with a fuel port on Astrotrain's starboard side, aft.

"Of course--those superconducting storage loops can't take any kind of electro-magnetic pulse, they'd go up like bombs. If they are part of the pyropod's reproductive cycle, its instincts should prevent it from attacking them, and perhaps spur it to rescue them," Astrotrain said.

"Lot of ifs," observed Blitzwing.

"If it doesn't work, you can make your heroic last stand and we'll pray the EMP blast is directional," replied Astrotrain. "Blitzwing, get out one of your missiles and disarm the warhead. We'll use the rocket engine to launch our little egg crate."

"Hey! Good one. Workin' on it, 'Train." Blitzwing extracted two concussion missiles from his launcher and started tinkering with them.

Octane sighed. "'Train, I'm fueling you all the way up. Something tells me you're going to need all the delta-v you can get."

"Affirmative. Blitzwing, when you're done lashing the missiles to our egg crate, and Octane is done fueling me, help him transform back and get inside. Be ready to launch the package from my aft bay door," instructed Astrotrain.

"I just know this isn't going to go according to plan," Blitzwing said.

"You're under the delusion this is actually a plan?" asked Octane. "This is pure desperation hoping for luck--which is about normal for me," he said, laughing. "I'm done, 'Train."

"Affirmative. Transform and load up! And luck will be with us, Octane. There is no other possibility!" The sky god of Titan laughed.

It was a desperate plan that depended on luck--and things failed to go according to plan.

"Look out! There's tip-jets vectoring in on our position!"

"Blitzwing! I'm stuck! My tail is jammed again!"

"Octane! Hang on!" yelled Astrotrain.

"Slagging wreck!" Blitzwing tried to kick Octane's aft into line while hanging onto the bay door with one hand.

Octane got whipped to the end of the cable tethering him to Astrotrain, stuck in mid-transform, as Astrotrain ignited his engines and started moving. Blitzwing grabbed the egg crate just as it nearly tumbled out into space; a loop of cable caught him around one leg and yanked him out the bay door.

"Launch the fragging package!" Astrotrain yelled as he accelerated.

"Yiiii!" Octane flailed as hot rocket exhaust blew past his face.

Blitzwing flung the egg crate in the opposite direction and triggered the first missile attached to it--the raft of eggs veered off into space trailing flame.

"OW! Damn it, 'Train!" Blitzwing cursed as the cable dragged him through Astrotrain's exhaust.

"I'm still stuck!" Octane screamed as the cable pulled taut, dragging him along behind Astrotrain.

"Hang on, ya panicky flying wreck!" Blitzwing bent down and grabbed the cable in both hands and pulled towards him in each direction, putting some slack in the cable. He carefully extracted his leg, then pulled himself down the cable hand-over-hand.

The great pyropod's tentacles all writhed and heaved, extracting themselves swiftly from the alien derelict. Two rocket-tipped tentacles zoomed up toward Astrotrain, pulled by their fusion rockets. Each one was easily three times the big purple and gray Decepticon's diameter.

Octane made the mistake of looking 'down' and saw the tip-jets zooming towards him as he flailed at the end of the cable. "'Train! We're gonna diiiiiiie!"

"Quit flailing about!" Blitzwing snapped as he clung to the cable just above where it was attached to Octane. "I can't reach your tail when you do that!"

Octane held still, though his half-transformed body was shaking. Blitzwing climbed down Octane to his tail assembly and kicked it solidly while holding onto Octane with both hands.

"OWWWWW! Do you have to kick so slagging hard--oh, that's got it!" Octane folded himself back into robot mode--incidentally dislodging Blitzwing.

Blitzwing gave an inarticulate shout and grabbed Octane's left ankle. A massive fusion rocket swung by, the heat exhaust from it searing Blitzwing's feet. Blitzwing roared in pain and clambered up Octane's body again, then charged hand-over-hand up the cable.

"Good," said Astrotrain. "It missed. And it hasn't EMP-blasted us yet. Blitzwing, reel Octane in. His jets are non-functional."

Blitzwing dragged himself in the aft bay door, then turned and braced himself securely. "What, are his arms broken? Otherwise he can reel himself in."

"Well, the right one mostly is," said Octane over the radio.

"I got to hear the full story of how you got beat to scrap like that," Blitzwing said as he started hauling Octane in.

Tentacles also closed in on the flying egg mass--then the timer on the second missile engine embedded in the mass went off, and it ignited, sending the raft of eggs off in a crazy spiral.

By the time everyone got aboard Astrotrain and he closed the aft bay door, they were well away from the derelict and the giant pyropod and accelerating fast. The great pyropod itself had unwound from the derelict and was jetting slowly in the direction of the raft of eggs.

# # #

Far out beyond the edge of the system, Kup's shuttle started beeping at him again.

"Now what--that Decepticon distress signal is back!" He pondered his navigational display for a few minutes. "What is going on down there? It's headed out of the system now..."

Kup ran a few projections on the navigation computer. "Hmm, if it keeps going in a straight line, I should eventually intercept it... here."

He sighed as he punched the required commands into the ship's computer. "Curiosity is going to kill me yet."

# # #

The great pyropod finally recovered the erratic raft of 'eggs', and tucked them away in an internal chamber reserved for them. Octane had been close--the white, circuit-filled ovoids were part of the pyropod's reproductive system, though more analogous to spermatophores than eggs. Once that vital matter had been taken care of, the ancient pyropod surveyed nearby space.

The prey was escaping.

The great pyropod shifted its tentacles back and locked them into long-distance travel mode; each tentacle became a rigid pylon connecting the rockets to the central body. All the tip-rockets ignited, accelerating the pyropod in pursuit of the fleeing Decepticons. The maw opened; titanic magnetic field generators reconfigured themselves, and an intangible magnetic ramscoop reached out for hundreds of kilometers, sucking down the hot, ionized hydrogen of the nebula to fuel the ever-accelerating pyropod. As long as the nebular gas fields held out, the pyropod had no limits to its range and only the speed of light limit to its velocity.

The prey would not escape.

# # #

Octane all but trembled with relief, safely back inside Astrotrain's hull, outbound away--far away!--from that ancient derelict and its monstrous inhabitant. "Where to now, 'Train? Besides 'away from there'."

"That's a bit of a puzzle I'm working on," Astrotrain said through his console speakers.

"Uh?" grunted Blitzwing as he checked his sword for nicks.

"My long-range sensors were all fried, so I'm navigating by Mark I optics and dead reckoning. If I can't see it, I don't know what's ahead of us or behind us. And our fuel situation is still a bit dicey. Octane lost a lot of fuel from his injuries," Astrotrain said. "However, I'm working something out."

"Uh-huh. How dicey?" asked Blitzwing.

"We don't have enough fuel to make Earth or Cybertron. We'll have to stop somewhere and re-fuel," replied Astrotrain.

"I can handle 'stop somewhere and refuel'," said Octane. "There are worse alternatives."

"Yeah, like 'drain your fellow passengers of fuel', or even 'throw your fellow passengers overboard'," said Blitzwing, grinning nastily.

"If I dumped _both_ of you leadbrains overboard, I still wouldn't have enough fuel to make Cybertron," Astrotrain said testily. "Not if I use the warp drive."

"'Train, I don't think Megatron's going to like waiting until we get there at sublight speeds," Octane said.

"That's why we're going to refuel somewhere. I'm just trying to figure out where. You said your fuel processor is down, any chance of field-repairing it?" Astrotrain asked.

Octane shook his head. "Not without replacement parts; too many major pieces smashed. Unless your idea of 'field repairs' includes a machine shop or a Constructicon."

Astrotrain rumbled through his console. "Then we'll have to find some place more civilized than a comet or ice asteroid."

"Hey, you could try wiring that alien power plant Blitzwing grabbed into your warp drive!" Octane said.

There was a long silence.

"I suppose that is a slightly better alternative than draining both your fuel tanks and throwing you overboard," Astrotrain said.

Blitzwing laughed. "Something tells me Astrotrain doesn't want to stick weird alien power sources into his guts! Can't imagine why not!"

"Because my name's not Megatron," Astrotrain said sardonically.

Blitzwing laughed heartily. "I'd try it, but I don't have a warp drive."

"I've got a better idea. My sensors aren't fried; why don't I ride outside and feed you data, 'Train?" Octane said.

"Best idea you've had since you wired us back together with space squid eggs. Do it!" Astrotrain said, undogging his forward hatch.

Octane climbed up and sat in the hatch, looking out at the nebula--and running his radar and passive sensors.

"Ugh! It's still a bunch of electronic soup out here--wait, there's something up ahead! I'm getting a strong signature on my radar!" said Octane.

"Give me bearings, damn it!" Astrotrain said.

"Transmitting navigation data." After a few minutes, Octane said, "I'm getting something on visual, and there's something awfully damn familiar about that radar profile. Can you see it?"

"I see it--it's an Autobot shuttle!" Astrotrain said as he homed in on the other spacecraft. "Blitzwing, get your aft out there! We've got a ride to catch!"

# # #

Kup also cursed the electronic soup of the nebula, which had suddenly gotten much worse. He could barely pick out the Decepticon distress signal; there was one big mess of a solar storm going on in that direction.

It faded out for several minutes; Kup thought it was gone, then it suddenly reappeared, much stronger, and much, much closer. The solar magnetic storm, or whatever was causing all the static, worsened.

_Clunk!_

Something hit the upper hull. Kup drew his pistol and moved quickly to the far aft of the shuttle and very quietly undogged the stern hatch between the engines.

"Bet he's expecting a reception committee from the main airlock," Kup said to himself. "Not an ambush from behind. One wounded Decepticon, by surprise--piece of cake!" Kup climbed out the stern hatch and pulled himself carefully over the engine cowling to the upper hull--

And found himself looking down the guns of not one, but _three_ large, powerful-looking Decepticons. In the middle, broad-winged, purple and gray, stood Astrotrain. To the right, the burly purple and white form of Blitzwing, and to the left, the large white, black and purple winged--and rather battered--triple-changer known as Octane.

"Kup," the gray-green Autobot thought to himself, "you are in serious trouble."

"Consider this a hijacking," said Astrotrain in his deep, resonant voice.

"Consider this an Autobot funeral," Blitzwing said, aiming his blaster at Kup's mid-section as he energized his sword.

"Surrender, Autobot--we just want the ship," said Octane.

"Octane!" Blitzwing glared at the tanker triple-changer. "What'd you say that for?"

"Well, we do!" Octane looked indignant.

"I'll talk to you later, Octane!" Blitzwing growled. "Well, what's it gonna be, Autobot?"

"With these odds, I don't see where I have a whole lot of choice," Kup said, handing his pistol to Octane.

"No, you don't," said Astrotrain. "Inside!"

"And don't try anything funny," Octane added.

"Please do try something," said Blitzwing. "I think it would be funny to see how many engine parts I can carve out per blow."

"I may be old, but I'm not stupid," Kup replied as he climbed back in the hatch. He briefly toyed with the idea of slamming the hatch in their faces, but dismissed it as a really dumb idea.

Astrotrain strode confidently ahead; Blitzwing and Octane grabbed Kup and half-dragged him to the bridge with them. Blitzwing checked various compartments as they passed.

"No one else on this barge," he reported to Astrotrain.

"I could have told you that!" Kup said.

"Would we have believed you?" answered Astrotrain. He seated himself in one of the bridge chairs and started pulling up ship status and navigation and other data.

Octane grabbed another console and checked the ship's sensors. Blitzwing contented himself with shoving Kup into another chair and watching their prisoner. He thumbed the power switch on his sword on and off from time to time.

"What in the Pit?" Astrotrain turned to glare at the Autobot. "I'm locked out of the engine controls!"

Kup folded his arms. "Well, yes, I don't want just any random stranger flying off with my ship, do I?"

Astrotrain smiled unpleasantly. "The code? We'll just hack it ourselves if you don't give it to me."

"Seems to me you're in a bit of a bind," Kup said. "You're stranded, aren't you?"

The three Decepticons glared at him in silence. Blitzwing slowly slid his sword out.

"Me, I'm one old worn-out Autobot and you're three of the meanest, toughest Cons to ever follow Megatron. Don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what you're going to do me." Kup looked straight at Astrotrain. "So why in the Pit should I help you slaggers?"

Astrotrain stood up and looked down at Kup, immense strength implied in every line and panel. "Octane, starting hacking the passcode. Blitzwing, start hacking pieces off the old-timer here until he gives us the passcode."

"Hey, that's the best order you've given me all day!" Blitzwing said with a nasty grin.

"'TRAIN!" The sound of panic edged Octane's shout. "We don't have that long! It's found us!"

He flicked a control at his console; the main viewscreen changed to show the view aft. Amidst the shimmering nebula, a tornado-like storm of highly-energized, magnetically-tortured gas swirled. At the heart of the storm, the brilliant white of fusion jets flickered.

"I'm counting over a hundred jets--and 'Train? It's using a magnetic ram!" Octane trembled on the edge of stark raving panic. "It's already moving faster than this shuttle can! We can't possibly outrun it!"

"A magnetic ram? That thing is a _Bussard ramjet_?" Astrotrain's resonant voice quavered very slightly. "Blitzwing! Belay that last order!"

"Aw, I never get to have any fun. What the slag is a Bussard ramjet?" asked Blitzwing. The evident fear in his two companions unnerved him.

"Fusion rocket fueled by interstellar hydrogen scooped up by a magnetic ram," Kup said absently. What in space had _Astrotrain _of all Cons running scared? "What is it?" he asked.

"A pyropod," Astrotrain rumbled. "Get us out of here and you live, Autobot!"

"The kraken of space? Whoa, haven't heard of one of those in... a very long time," said Kup, getting up and peering over Octane's wings at the sensor console.

"This one is big enough to eat a Zhdant battlecruiser for a snack... and she knows Octane broke up her eggs for spare parts," Astrotrain rumbled.

"He did _what?"_ Kup dove for the engine controls, typed in the passcode and hit the throttle. "Got to get this tub up to speed or she won't warp."

"I don't get to kill the Bot?" Blitzwing sounded slightly disappointed.

"No. If the Autobot gets us out of here, he lives; if he betrays us, the pyropod kills us all," Astrotrain's voice had lost that slight quaver, and now betrayed a grim amusement.

"You can't win, Blitzwing," Octane said. "Either way, you're disappointed. Uh, Autobot..."

"Kup. They call me Kup."

"Kup, can you hurry it up? I don't know the range on Big Mamma's EMP blast, but she's closer than I like," said Octane, his voice betraying his nervousness. He hunched over the sensor console, like he was afraid it would jump off and run away if he didn't watch it closely.

"EMP? That's a new one on me--but so's the ramjet," Kup said. "Might explain why no one has ever lived to tell about the really big pyropods." Reality warped outside the ship as Kup engaged the warp drive--an instant before the first EMP blast thundered through the space where the shuttle had been.

"Something tells me there's a story behind this," Kup added. "And it's a long haul to Monacus..."

"Is there ever!" Octane leaned back in the console chair. "Let me tell you about three Decepticon heroes and the nesting ground of the legendary pyropods..."

# # #


	5. Epilogue

The ancient pyropod contemplated its vanished prey for some hours. Its behavior matched the capabilities found in the alien memory it had assimilated, and the great pyropod carefully remembered and studied the energies. It could not yet duplicate the curious translight propulsion system; there was not enough information about how it worked in the alien memory module.

It filed the topic for future reference. Someday, it would capture another one, and it would know not to render down the drive unit until after dismantling and analyzing the device.

'Someday' might be very soon. The great pyropod tired of the Orion Nebula systems; they were too crowded with generations of its offspring, squabbling over every scrap of food to be found. It had fed well, and had a full complement of spermatophores stowed away; the thick gas of the nebula funneled through the ramjet as the ancient kraken of space accelerated on and on, pushing the edge of light speed.

There were two systems of interest in the alien memory module. One, a rogue metallic planet, had too much gravity and too few accessible resources. The other--the other was almost perfect. A dense outer cometary shell, plentiful planetoids, gas giants and their moons... food and prey in abundance, room to breed, and no siblings or offspring to share it with.

The ancient pyropod adjusted its course once more and hurtled at relativistic speeds toward Earth's solar system.

-- FIN --

* * *

_Author's Note: I nicked the name and basic concept of pyropods from a long-forgotten scifi novel. Since I couldn't remember the details, I re-invented them._


End file.
